


Fireflies

by Deannie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-04-19
Updated: 1996-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A plane crash in Maine leaves Scully scrambling for word of her partner</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireflies

_En route to Portland, ME_  
3:35 am  
Monday  


"I still think you're crazy, Mulder," Scully said seriously, looking at her partner, who lay sprawled across three seats on the other side of the aisle.  


"I know, but Skinner would never approve your transfer now," he joked. "You've been contaminated."  


"By _what?_ " she returned, looking at him strangely.  


He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Spookiness."  


"Sure. Fine. Whatever."  


They'd be in Portland by five, giving them enough time for a couple of hours' sleep before they had to meet with the local commish about a rash of rape-murders that had been firing up the press in recent weeks. Mulder had given Scully some hare-brained scheme about aliens or mutants or--God, she could hardly remember it now. He was only doing it to razz her, but she realized he'd have no fun if she didn't rise to the bait. So, she did her best.  


Now, though, all she wanted was to get a few moments' rest before they touched down. At least it might take the edge off.  


"I'm going to sleep now, grey-boy," she joked.  


"Okay. Don't let the fireflies keep you up."  


She straightened up, looking at him. "What?"  


He smiled a rare, full smile--his happy-memory smile. "Sam used to think that fireflies were actually fairies, and that they would whisper in her ear to keep her awake when we went camping."  


"And why would she think that?" Scully asked suspiciously. "Certainly not because her big brother told her so?"  


"Oh," Mulder agreed seriously. "Certainly not." He smiled over at her gently. "Night Scully."  


"Night Mulder."  


   


_4:15 am_   


Mulder was jolted awake by the turbulence. He peered out the window and encountered a driving rain, accompanied by the most terrific lightning he'd ever seen.  


At the next jolt, Scully was awake as well, eyes wide. "What's happening?"  


"I don't know," he shrugged. "Looks like a rainstorm." The cabin lights chose that moment to go out and Scully could _hear_ the thunder rumble through the plane's body.  


"Oh, God," she whispered.  


Mulder reached across the aisle to still her shaking hand. "Don't worry, Scully. Planes like this are made to fly through all sorts of weather."  


She glared at him. He was kidding, right? That was the second Flood they were seeing out there!  


As if to make her point for her, there was a punishing flash of light, and a sound rumbled through the fuselage.  


It was definitely _not_ thunder.  


The co-pilot came on the intercom. "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're experiencing just a little bit of difficulty with the weather out there, so if you could please stay in your seats with your seatbelts fastened--" he broke off in a yelp.  


"Mulder..." Scully hissed worriedly.  


"Scully," he said seriously, "it'll be okay. I promise."  


She smiled at that. "You can't fly the plane, Mulder. Don't make promises you can't keep."  


His hand tightened on hers suddenly as the plane careened madly to the left, and a baggage compartment two rows up slammed open, accompanied by the frightened cries of the people below it.  


Scully wasn't at all surprised when a harried flight attendant came on the intercom seconds later. "Ladies and gentlemen. We are going to be making an emergency landing at Hillhana Municipal Airport. Please keep to your seats and remain calm. We *will* get down safely." She did actually *try* to sound as if she believed it. "We'll be touching down in about twenty minutes. There will be heavy turbulence while we descend to the airfield, so please remain in your seats."  


Scully laughed out loud at that, and Mulder looked at her strangely.  


"I'm sorry," she said finally, "but who the hell would _want_ to run up and down the aisles in _this_?"  


Anything Mulder might have said in return was drowned out by the sickening sound of wrenching metal. The plane began to plummet, and, with another terrifying screech of iron and steel, Scully felt Mulder's hand being ripped away from her.  


* * *  


 _Somewhere in Southern Maine_  
6:47 am  


"Oh, God!"  


Scully lay exactly where she was, not making the mistake of moving again. Something was crushing her stomach and she was effectively pinned to the metal wreckage below her. Somehow, she'd come out of her seat, and now lay in the twisted remains of the plane. She took a deep breath, hissing at the pain it caused. "Mulder!"  


There was no answer at all. "MULDER!"  


"Lady?" came a faint voice, far off.  


"I'm over here!" she called, as loudly as she could. The pain was making it hard for her to stay conscious. "I'm over here!"  


She saw a flashlight bobbing through the predawn light toward her. As it neared, she could see that it was held by a fireman. He knelt down, a bit away from her, surveying the wreckage she had become part of.  


"Can you move, ma'am?"  


"No," she grunted painfully, her voice desperate. "I had a friend on the plane. Tall, dark hair. Can you see him?"  


The flashlight bobbed away from her, traveling over the smoking rubble. "I don't see anyone, ma'am," he said, though she knew he meant he didn't see anyone _alive._ He stood up. "Look, I'm going to go get a couple of the others to help me get you out of there, okay?"  


She could barely nod, the pain taking over again. As she slipped back into the blackness, she could only pray that Mulder had somehow survived.  


* * *  


"We'll have you out of there in just a minute, sir," the young sheriff's deputy promised, sitting next to Mulder's head. He tried to keep the lanky man's mind off of the blow torches that were being fired up around him, trying to pry him out of the shell of metal by which he was encased.  


"What's your name?" the deputy asked.  


"Mulder," the lanky man replied weakly.  


The deputy smiled. "That your first name, or your last?"  


"It's just my name."  


The deputy looked down at him critically for a moment. "Well, Mulder," he said quietly. "My name's Ulysses... Want to tell me what _your_ name is, again?"  


Mulder smiled faintly. "Fox... Fox Mulder."  


Ulysses smirked at that, his eyes roving, keeping watch as the firefighters around him finally got ready to pull the remaining wreckage off of the man lying before him. "I can see why you just go by Mulder," he joked quietly.  


He continued to talk to the man as they started peeling the wing away from him, reassuring him through the pain this maneuver obviously caused.  


It took fifteen minutes to get him ready to move. "We're going to put a collar around your neck now, Mulder," Ulysses told him. "It'll keep your head from moving too much until we can tell how badly you're hurt."  


The EMT beside him slipped the cervical collar carefully over Mulder's bleeding neck. The tall FBI agent tried to tilt his head up slightly to look at the policeman, wincing at the pain it caused. "I had a friend in the plane..." he began desperately.  


"I promise we'll look for him," the deputy said quickly. "The wreckage is scattered over half of this county, but I promise we'll look." Ulysses helped the EMTs lift the lanky man onto a backboard. "What does your friend look like?"  


"She's small. Red hair..." Mulder whispered sadly. "She's beautiful."  


   


 _Hillhana County Hospital_  
Hillhana, ME  
9:45 am  


It had taken an hour to pry all the metal away from her, and when they had, they'd found that she'd been not only pinned, but impaled, by the fragment of wing plate that had settled onto her. She'd gone shocky in the ambulance, and they'd been fighting to keep her from fading on them while waiting for the over-burdened surgeons to get to her.  


Richard Beckwith ran a soothing hand through the beautiful woman's hair for the thousandth time. After that first minute, when he'd found her, she'd had only a very loose hold on consciousness. He hadn't even been able to find out her name until they'd stripped off her jacket, and her badge had fallen out. Now, he whispered to her gently, over and over. "It's okay, Dana. It's okay. You're going to be fine..."  


He had no idea if she could hear him, but he was so heartbroken at the pain around her eyes, the weakness of her moans. This was the part of the job he really hated--waiting with someone while they died.  


"It'll be okay, Dana. I promise. Everything will be okay."  


Barely conscious, a young FBI agent started to cry.  


   


 _Maitreville Community Hospital_  
Maitreville, ME  
11:45 am  


Doctor Gillian Forrester sat down heavily as her friend Sarah handed her a cup of coffee.  


"You okay, Gilli?"  


Forrester looked up at her through red-rimmed eyes. "We lost another one," she said quietly.  


"Oh, Gilli..."  


"It was so sad. He didn't seem like he was too bad off when they brought him in--just some bruises, a couple of broken bones, wrenched back..." She sighed painfully. "He was cute, too. Tall, dark hair. Had the most beautiful eyes..." Gilli sniffed mightily. "He just... You know, he just kept asking us to hunt for his girlfriend--like it was more important that we find her than save him... And he just slipped away..."  


   


 _Hillhana County Hospital_  
Tuesday  
3:45 pm  


Richard walked into the private room quietly, a bouquet of daisies in his hand. He put them silently on the table by the window, and watched the young redhead sleep for a minute.  


He'd been amazed when they told him she'd actually survived the surgery. He'd been so sure that he had spent her last few hours with her when they wheeled her away. She wouldn't have been the only one.  


Sixty-five of the one hundred and seven passengers they'd found, were dead now. They had no idea how many more were missing. The plane had fragmented as it came down, and they had found bodies as far away as Cartersville, some twenty miles off. Organizing the list of names would take time.  


The accident had had nothing to do with pilot error--though the pilot was no longer around to defend himself, regardless. The news people were saying that it was some kind of mechanical failure--the plane was hit by lightning, they thought.  


Richard had no idea what had happened, but he did know that, out of the seven people his team had brought in, only this strong, beautiful redhead had survived.  


He turned to go, and heard a weak voice behind him. "Stop, please."  


He turned back to her, face shining. "Hi, Dana," he said gently. "How are you feeling?"  


She looked at him seriously for a moment. "That's a stupid question," she finally observed quietly. What she had really been thinking about was how often Mulder had been there to ask that very same question.  


"S'pose so," he agreed with a smile.  


"You were with me in the emergency room?" she asked tentatively, not sure how much of the day before had been dream, and how much reality. "You stayed with me?"  


"Yeah," he agreed, suddenly bashful. "Yeah, I just... I didn't want you to be alone."  


She started crying at that, and he rushed over to the bed. "I'm sorry, Dana," he whispered, automatically running his hand through her hair again. "I'm sorry..."  


"No," she whispered. "I'm sorry--it's okay--it's just that..."  


"What?" he prompted gently.  


"I had a friend on the plane..." she tried to stop her crying, but it only made it worse, and the way she just lay there weakly, tears running down her cheeks, made his heart hurt. "He... promised me it would be all right... And I don't know if he's..."  


"Shhh," Richard said quietly, soothing her as he would his young daughter. "Shhh... What's his name, Dana? I'll find him for you."  


She almost didn't want him to be found. She was sure that, given the death toll she'd already heard, he was gone. She wasn't sure she could deal with finding out for sure.  


"Fox Mulder," she finally whispered brokenly. "His name was Fox Mulder."  


* * *  


 _County Sherriff's Office_  
Hillhana, ME  
3:17 pm  
Wednesday  


The switchboards were going crazy. People were trying to call out, with information to loved ones about their husbands or wives or sons or daughters. The very people who needed that information were also trying to call _in,_ creating a nightmare for operators all over Hillhana county.  


Beckwith had been out with the cleanup parties for the better part of the day, but his mind had roamed back to the dejected young redhead often. Now, he finally had some time to do something about that.  


"Cyndie!" he called over the chaos.  


"What?" a dark-haired young woman snapped. "I'm really busy, Rick, okay? Go bother somebody else."  


"Look, this is important. I'm looking for a guy who might be a survivor."  


Cyndie looked around incredulously at the dozens of ringing phones. "So's everyone else! Take a number."  


"Who're you looking for, Rick?" a tall woman with gently greying hair asked. "I'll help you out."  


"Thanks, Anna," Rick replied, glaring at Cyndie for a moment before moving to the other woman's desk.  


"She said his name was Fox Mulder. He's about 6' 2", brown hair, hazel eyes. He's an FBI agent."  


"Ooh!" Anna replied with a smile, moving to the makeshift register they'd started up, cataloging the dead and wounded.  


"Let's see... Mulder... Mulder... Fox Mulder? ...Mulder..." She looked up. "Nope, sorry. I can't find him."  


"Does that have the names for the whole county?"  


"Are you kidding me?" she asked with a tight laugh. "Rick, there are twelve hospitals taking part in this. It's going to take days to get everyone logged in. Not to mention the fact that a number of the dead haven't even been identified yet."  


Richard nodded sadly. He couldn't go back to her empty-handed. "Do we have descriptions of the John Does from the area morgues?" Maybe he was there. For Dana's sake, Richard hoped not.  


"I've got _some..._ " She flipped to the back of the book. "Tall, brown hair, hazel eyes... They've got two at the morgue in Sillia, and... God, _four_ at Maitreville Community."  


Richard sighed. Time to go on a road trip. Sillia was in one direction, Maitreville in the exact opposite. He'd start in Maitreville first, he decided.  


   


 _Maitreville Community Hospital_  
Maitreville, ME  
4:15 pm  


"I hope you can identify at least one of them," the young orderly said. The fatigue in his voice was now a standard fixture in the area hospitals. Some people had been on shift almost since the crash--catching sleep when they could. With forty people still unaccounted for, and more of the newly-found trickling in each hour, there was no clear end in sight.  


"We tried to keep nearby pieces of clothing and baggage with the bodies. A couple of these had some sort of identification by them, but we're still not sure it's them."  


Richard nodded and bent down to take a look at the first corpse. He fit Dana's description--but they all did. He looked at the dark trench coat beside the body. It had apparently been found next to him, and they were assuming it was his, but there was nothing in the pockets that could identify him.  


He got to the third corpse and grimaced slightly at the wound on its neck. The orderly nodded. "That one came in here the first morning. He was absolutely frantic that we find his girlfriend, and--"  


"Did he give a description of her?"  


The orderly shrugged. "Not to me. I think Uly Johnson--local deputy--was with the group that brought him in, though. You could go over to the sheriff's office and ask him."  


Richard nodded, straightening up. "Hey, do you have a Polaroid or something around here? I want to take some pictures of these guys."  


"Sure," the young man said, going off to one side to retrieve the camera. "Police from all over the county have been doing that all day."  


   


The pictures taken, Richard prepared to leave. He could still head on to Sillia... and take more pictures of more dead men. He sighed as he walked out of the morgue, dreading the idea of going back to her and showing her the pictures...  


He almost didn't notice the young man who was suddenly standing in his way, as he headed out of the hospital.  


"Hey, you're Beckwith?" the sheriff's deputy asked.  


Richard nodded.  


"My name's Uly Johnson. Barry told me you came in from Hillhana?" When Richard nodded again, the young man's eyes narrowed. "This whole accident is just one long headache... I was wondering... you wouldn't, by any chance, have seen..."  


* * *  


 _Hillhana County Hospital_  
Hillhana, ME  
7:45 pm  


Scully stared hard at the ceiling, trying to forget everything. She'd spent the past hour or so filling out forms. The hospital was so backed up, that they'd only now got round to logging in people like her, who'd been unconscious during that first, very busy day.  


Richard hadn't been back yet, and she almost didn't want to see him when he did arrive. Her stomach hurt--even the pain-killers they were feeding into her now weren't enough to dull it completely.  


But the wing plate hadn't done nearly the damage it might have, and, while she'd probably be in the hospital for a couple of weeks, the doctors were sure she'd recover--much to their surprise, given her condition when they'd brought her in. All in all, she was very lucky to be alive.  


Except that she didn't feel lucky. She felt like she'd almost rather they'd left her there to bleed to death.  


No--she didn't really feel that way... But to lose her partner, her *friend*, in something so stupid. A simple redeye flight. Something they'd endured a thousand times in their four years together...  


To lose him now... She dashed her tears away angrily. It was just so *stupid*! He was probably gone now, and there would be no more alien jokes, no more ugly ties, no more... Mulder.  


Trying to fan the very small spark of hope she had left, she gazed sadly out the window of her darkened room, and caught the images of light flashing in the darkness. They were ambulance lights of course, but they reminded her of him.  


And of fireflies...  


   


_9:15 pm_   


"Dana?" Richard's soft voice woke her slightly from a dream filled with frightening images. A dream that was dominated by the feel of his hand being ripped from hers, and the sound of screaming metal.  


"Dana? Are you awake?" He had such a gentle voice. Gentle... Like Mulder's had been.  


"Hmmm," she replied sleepily.  


"Are you up for a visitor?"  


So her mom had finally gotten there. It was only yesterday morning that they'd been able to get word to her. "Sure," she whispered, much less than half-awake. "She can watch me sleep."  


"I'd love to watch you sleep, Scully."  


She knew now that this was just more of the dream--the cruelest part, really. In her dreams, he was alive...  


She never wanted to wake up again.  


"Scully?" Mulder's gentle question was accompanied by a strange squeaking. She almost recognized it. Like a hospital gurney, she thought sleepily.  


Just like a hospital gurney...  


   


Mulder looked over at her as she dropped immediately back to sleep, his mind replaying the previous hours with a quiet joy...  


* * *  


Ulysses Johnson had walked quietly into his room, and, as always, Mulder had looked up expectantly. Uly had been searching the nearby hospitals, calling the outlying areas, looking everywhere for some clue as to where Scully might have ended up--if she was even still alive. The last dead-count Mulder had heard was one hundred and six. It left a very slim margin...  


"Mulder," Uly had said, in that quiet voice of his. "I want you to meet Richard Beckwith. He's a fireman over in Hillhana."  


Mulder looked to the other man, taller than him, curly black hair, a kind, but serious, face. It was the seriousness that started Mulder sweating, as Uly Johnson quietly quit the room.  


"Can I help you?" Mulder had asked carefully. This guy was obviously here to tell him they'd found her body. He wished he'd be quick about it.  


"I've been looking for you for a couple of days now," the young man replied, a slow smile spreading over his features. "And, uh... So has a certain young redhead."  


Mulder had looked at him for a full minute before it registered. She was alive? When he tried to speak, he couldn't. "Where...?" he finally croaked.  


"She's in the hospital in Hillhana--"  


"Is she okay?" Mulder asked tensely, trying to sit up, and wincing at his wrenched back.  


Richard shook his head speculatively. "I wouldn't say she's okay--but she will be. Especially once she knows you're okay."  


"I want to see her," Mulder demanded.  


"I don't think they're going to let you out of here, Mr. Mulder."  


Mulder just seethed for a minute, knowing he couldn't get out of this bed if he wanted to. Damnit! After two endless days of trying to deal with the fact that he'd probably never see her again, he _needed_ to touch her--to prove to himself that she was there... That he wasn't alone.  


Richard watched him carefully for a moment. "I'll be back, Mr. Mulder," he said quietly.  


Mulder never even heard him leave.  


* * *  


And now, after Uly Johnson and Beckwith had spent an hour all but browbeating Maitreville Community into transferring him to Hillhana, he was engaging in his favorite pastime--watching his partner sleep. She was alive! He'd spent the last day certain that she was gone forever, certain that he'd have to face day after day after day without her. And now...  


And now, she lay before him, sleeping peacefully--as beautiful as ever.  


"All right, Mr. Mulder," the charge nurse said quietly. "I'll take you up to the ward now."  


Mulder unleashed a puppy dog look. "Can't I stay here?" he asked timidly. "I mean, with all the chaos, you must be pretty crowded, right?"  


Richard Beckwith smiled. This search had clearly been worth it, though he marveled that he and Johnson had spent so much time searching for each other's survivors. If they had only known...  


The lanky puppy dog was still trying to pout his way into staying, and Richard suddenly grinned slyly at the nurse.  


"Come on, Sandy," he cajoled. "What's it going to hurt?"  


She returned the grin, and with Richard's help, tooled the gurney over toward the window.  


"Goodnight, Scully," Richard heard the lanky man whisper, as he and Sandy left the two of them alone.  


* * *  


 _Hillhana County Hospital_  
Hillhana, ME  
7:00 am  
Thursday  


Scully woke grudgingly, the painkillers slowing her brain down to a gentle daze. She looked over at the window to see the sunrise, and saw the other bed sitting there, still indistinct in the grey before dawn.  


They must be really backed up, she thought, to just wheel the gurney in here.  


She didn't want company, but the other patient seemed to be well asleep, so she could probably experience the sunrise by herself. She didn't think she could enjoy it, though. The memory of Mulder, calling softly to her in her dreams, still hurt--more than her gut.  


As the sun rose, she got a better look at the patient on the gurney, and, for a moment, she thought she was dreaming again. "Mulder?" she whispered incredulously.  


She tried again, louder this time. "Mulder?" Her voice was on the edge of tears, her hands shaking, but if he'd only answer her, none of that would matter.  


And then he woke, and turned toward her, carefully, gingerly, and she smiled the widest smile he had ever seen from her.  


"That," he commented softly, "is a _great_ way to wake up."  


She laughed joyously, not even noticing the pain in her stomach now. "Yes it is, Mulder. God... Yes it is."  


* * *  
The End  


FANDOM: X-Files  
RATING: G  
ORIENTATION: Gen 


End file.
